by Amy Lane
Table of Contents
Blurb
Dedication
Prologue—Digger’s Dilemma
Vernal Bobby
Blinded by the Bright
New and Normal
Left Behind
Lessons in the Interim
So Many Fish
Breaks and Fixes
That Word Again
Hells of Our Own Making
An Old Thing Made New
Home Bird
Navigating Strange Waters
Cautionary Tales
The Moon
Old Business
Needing More, Needing Better
Moving In, Moving Out, Moving In
A Different Normal
The Blindside
Full Circle
Done and Raw
Breaking the Circle
Building
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Copyright
Bobby Green
By Amy Lane
Johnnies: Book Five
Vern Roberts couldn’t wait to turn eighteen and get the hell out of Dogpatch, California. But city living is expensive, and he’s damned desperate when Dex from Johnnies spots him bussing tables.
As “Bobby,” he’s a natural at gay porn. Soon he’s surrounded by hot guys and sex for the taking, but it’s not just his girlfriend back in Dogpatch—or her blackmailing brother—that keeps him from taking it. It’s the sweet guy who held the lights for his first solo scene, who showed him decency, kindness, and a smile.
Reg Williams likes to think he’s too stupid to realize what a shitty hand life dealt him, but Bobby knows better. What Reg lacks in family, opportunity, education, and money, he makes up for in heart. One fumbling step at a time, they connect, not just in their hearts but in their bodies, where sex that’s not on camera, casual, or meaningless, becomes the most important thing in the world.
But Reg is hampered by an inescapable family burden, and he and Bobby will never fly unless he can find a way to manage it. Can he break the painful link to his unrealized childhood and grow into the love Bobby wants to give?
To everyone who has a V in their life. To those who made it work and those who couldn’t. May the world get better, may we learn to do more for the Vs in this world—and for those of us who care for them. We’ve got nowhere to go but up.
Prologue—Digger’s Dilemma
REG KNEW this room—had used it a number of times in the past. Had engaged in sex for entertainment on the bed, had bent over the dresser, had even come on the closet mirror once or twice, for effect.
He’d been comfortable here, with the smell of antiseptic, sweat, and old jizz. This was his work space, and he’d had no problems at all forgetting about the smell and engaging in the body of his partner, male or female, and participating in sex on camera for money.
No problems until now.
Now he cuddled his coffee like it was December instead of a hot and humid late July.
“Dex,” he moaned softly. “Dex, no. You can’t… I can’t.”
Dex had stunning blue eyes, innocent as a baby’s, so innocent it was hard to remember he had as many, if not more, porn films under his belt than Reg did. Dex didn’t do that anymore, though. Hadn’t since last October. Not since Chance—wait, Chase Summers, Reg always forgot—tried to kill himself.
Suddenly Dex had quit modeling and started bossing, and quit pining for his useless druggie ex-boyfriend and started living with Kane, who had stopped modeling too, and then they’d gotten married and adopted Kane’s niece, and now Reg was the oldest living porn model and all his friends were daddies.
Reg wasn’t sure if that was the exact chain of events, but then he was often muddy on cause and effect. He was really much better off in the now.
But right now sucked.
Dex looked up from his computer screen and turned those innocent eyes on Reg.
They were filled with nothing but compassion.
“Reg—I mean Digger—”
“Reg,” he said, because the Digger thing had been a day late and a dollar short and it didn’t matter now.
“Okay. Reg. You said it wouldn’t be a problem.”
“He’s….” Reg swallowed and darted a furtive glance across the room. The kid standing there in jeans and nothing else was drinking water, just like Reg had told him, hydrating with no sugar, because fucking for money was a strenuous occupation. His sandy-brown hair hung layered around his long square-jawed face, and his eyes—brownish-green, whatever the word was for that—were wide and friendly. He had pillow lips and a ten-inch cock, which made the wide and friendly eyes almost like a trap. Yeah, you could fall for this kid’s wide-eyed farm-boy routine, but watch out. He could suck your balls through your cock like a straw and then destroy your asshole with a few good strokes.
He was tall—six foot five now, because he’d grown two inches—with a long torso just waiting to fill out completely at the shoulders when the kid passed twenty-five. Or, oh God help him, twenty. Reg was almost ten years this boy’s senior, and he couldn’t even look the kid in the face. “He needs to find somebody else,” he said, taking a sip of his coffee and wishing it was laced with something stronger.
“For the shoot?” Dex clarified. “Or for real life?”
“I wasn’t supposed to be on the shoot, remember?” Reg asked bitterly. “I was supposed to be out of it. You said I could be out of it, and then you asked if I could fill in and I—”
Dex was looking at him like he was waiting for Reg to get something, but Reg wasn’t seeing it.
Of course, Reg didn’t see a lot of things. Reg was pretty goddamned stupid, but Dex was always nice enough to not say that.
He just waited, lush mouth slightly parted, eyes not quite as wide as the kid at the end of the room, but just as patient.
“What?” Reg asked, miserable. “What am I not getting?”
Dex shook his head. “Look, Reg? You undress down to your jeans, and then I’m going to leave the room for a sec. You two need to talk.”
Reg started to obey immediately, not sure why undressing was part of talking or why Dex would leave the room before a shoot. He often had one or two guys doing lights and other camera angles too—they weren’t there today, and Reg didn’t know why and frankly didn’t care.
He had one job to do. Get hard and get laid. He wasn’t smart, but that much he knew.
So he obeyed orders. He was good at that, even when he topped. It’s why he didn’t mind when the director made him start fucking or stop fucking or told him more tongue or less or when to come.
Orders meant direction.
Reg needed direction.
He looked up at the big kid in the corner and swallowed. Bobby had given him orders. Good ones, like “Let’s clean the house and go out” or “I’ll cook if you go buy these ingredients.”
In bed he’d been insatiable, had made as many of the decisions as Reg could stand, and Reg could stand a lot.
Or he could with Bobby.
Dex left, venturing into the hallway of the small office complex that Johnnies called home. This room had been outfitted to look like a bedroom—there were a couple here, so they could shoot more than one scene at a time. But the front office had a reception area and offices for John, the owner, and one for Dex, who did most of the editing, and now one for Reg, who didn’t fuck for money anymore but arranged public appearances and things.
Until now.
He’d taken off his shoes and shirt, folded it neatly, and set them on a shelf in the corner with his shoes. There were locker rooms for clothes, but sometimes a director would decide
he wanted different things for a shot, so always be prepared, right?
Also Reg had a place to keep his coffee, which was a plus. He should have brought water, like what Bobby was drinking, but he’d forgotten.
He hadn’t done this in a couple of months.
He stopped fidgeting with his stuff and then walked to where Bobby stood, arms crossed over what was already a magnificent chest, the recent scar still healing across his ribs and stomach notwithstanding. He stared at Reg with a no-bullshit expression that made him look years older.
“I’m sorry,” Reg said, not meeting his eyes. “I didn’t know it was you, or I would have made Dex get someone else. I’m sure I’m the last person you want to do a scene with and—”
“Reg, stop talking,” Bobby said sharply.
Reg looked up at him in surprise. He usually let Reg finish rambling—was, in fact, one of the few people who could stand to listen to Reg talk at all.
“Bobby?” His voice sounded broken to his own ears.
Bobby took two steps forward, looming over Reg’s five foot ten without apology. “You look like shit,” he said. “You haven’t been taking care of my boy.”
Reg bit his lip, miserable. “I told you to fuck off,” he whispered. “Twice.”
“Changes nothing.”
Reg still couldn’t look at him. “I… I can’t—”
Bobby reached out, and for a moment Reg thought he’d touch him tenderly, brush his cheek with his knuckle or hug him, and the thought made him want to cry.
Instead he grabbed Reg’s hair and tilted his head back slowly, until Reg had no choice but to look him in the eyes.
“You listen to me, Reggie.” He sounded angry and sad at once, and his mouth kept working, like he was having a hard time not letting his face crumple and cry. “We’re not here to fuck. That’s not why Dex put you in here.”
“But—” Reg gestured. “The scene!”
“You want to do a scene?” Bobby yanked him forward until their bare chests touched, and Reg’s body lit on fire with want. “Fine. We’ll do a scene. But you need to think about this right now, Reggie. If we do a scene, we’re not doing it for the camera, and we’re not doing it for money. We’re doing it because we’re together, and I’m not letting you push me away one more goddamned time.”
He was so close, his mouth soft and threatening, his arms locked around Reg securely.
Oh God, Reg felt safe.
He never felt safe in his life—unless he was right here.
He never felt wanted, just right here.
But he was too old. Too old and too stupid, and this kid… this kid here… he needed someone with promise. Someone he could regard as an equal, right?
Reg swallowed hard and thought about pulling away.
Bobby lowered his head and stayed poised, a breath away. A kiss away. A lifetime away.
“C’mon, Reg,” Bobby whispered. “What’s it going to be?”
Vernal Bobby
Fifteen months earlier…
VERN ROBERTS flailed for purchase against the hay bale and tried not to let his knees buckle. Goddammit, it was like this every single time.
His girlfriend’s brother gave the most delicious head, and in spite of Vern’s protests, Keith Gilmore wouldn’t leave Vern’s cock alone.
“Keith,” he panted, stars exploding behind his eyes. “Keith, I’m gonna… oh fuck… I’m gonna come….”
Keith pulled back, breathed on the head of Vern’s dick, and grinned. “Then come,” he taunted before sucking Vern down again. He could only get halfway down, but that was two inches farther than Keith’s sister could, so Vern wasn’t going to argue. And something about Keith’s grip, his stubble, the dirty way he smiled at Vern when Jessica wasn’t looking—it always made the blowjob ever so much more amazing.
Keith squeezed Vern’s base hard and then tugged on Vern’s generously sized balls. It wasn’t actually the ball-tugging—that was okay—it was the forbidden way Keith’s little finger brushed up against Vern’s asscheeks that did it—sent Vern right over, pumping hard and hot into Keith’s sucking mouth.
Keith gagged and swallowed and swallowed more, finally backing off when Vern was still milking the dregs out of his own cock, because this here—the coming forever—was about the one thing in the world Vern could do right.
But only with Keith.
“Whoo!” Keith chortled, falling back against the straw and wiping his mouth on his bare shoulder. “Damn, Vern. That’s like a party trick. You should do that on the internet and get paid!”
Vern rolled his eyes. “Yeah. I think that’s called porn, and your sister would kill me.” He bit his lip self-consciously then, tasting Keith’s come in his mouth all over again, because it had been Vern’s turn to suck first. “Not that, uh, she’d be any happier about what we’re doing now,” he said delicately.
Keith just smirked at him, completely naked, sweating in the heat of the hay barn. Vern blushed and pulled his jeans up from around his ankles, positioned his briefs, and buttoned up. He checked the neck of his T-shirt self-consciously, hoping none of Keith’s jizz had spilled out of his mouth, but Keith didn’t come for as long as Vern did, so it wasn’t a problem.
“Yeah—and my girlfriend would probably gut us both with hay hooks,” Keith said affably. It was true, though—Carla was a little bit, uh, psychotic and jealous were the words Jessica used. “But that don’t mean we’re gonna stop.” He winked—and Vern recoiled.
“But Keith—you and Carla—you’re getting married in a couple of months.”
Keith had sandy-brown hair and gray eyes in a farm-boy tanned face. When he smiled, he looked bright and wicked and alive, but times like this, when he looked blank, Vern suspected he really didn’t have a lot going on upstairs.
“So?”
Vern stared at him. “Keith—you’re getting married. This… I mean, it’s bad enough what we’re doing here—but married.”
The blowjobs hadn’t been Vern’s idea. He and Keith worked for Keith’s dad in the summers—baling hay, driving it to feed stores around the county, feeding Mr. Gilmore’s stock. Two years ago—right after Vern hit his growth spurt at sixteen and passed six feet tall—they’d worked a long summer’s day and ended stripping off their jeans and hosing each other off behind the barn. Keith had taken one look at Vern’s equipment through the wet cotton of his briefs, shucked the briefs down to Vern’s ankles, and blown him, right there in the mud. Vern hadn’t been going with Jessica yet—but Keith had been with Carla for more than a year.
When Vern said something—as he remembered, it had been along the lines of “But… but… you’ve got a—omigod, I’m gonna come! Girl—Jesus yes!—friend!”—Keith had grinned up at him, those appealing crinkles in the corners of his eyes.
“Cool your jets—just boys playing around.” And then he’d sucked on Vern again, and Vern had come in his mouth.
But now—now with Keith and Carla getting married and Vern and Jess talking about it—this thing they were doing didn’t feel like boys playing around anymore.
It felt like cheating.
Vern discovered he didn’t like this feeling much.
Keith stood up fluidly, the lean muscles in his twenty-one-year-old body stretching and flexing as he did.
God, he was pretty.
Vern felt like a fag for thinking it, but Jesus—Keith Gilmore’s body was made for more than blowjobs. Vern felt a little cheated, actually—here they were, doing this thing that could get them caught, screw up both their lives, and ruin their relationships, and he hadn’t even been allowed to run his hand down Keith’s back, just to feel his muscles and his skin.
“Stop looking at me like that, faggot,” Keith taunted, rolling his eyes. Vern looked away.
“We can’t do this after you and Carla get married,” he said in a small voice, and for once, Keith’s perpetual smirk fell away, and he looked a little lost.
“What? Why the hell not?”
“’Cause it’s
not right,” Vern said, walking to the sink in the corner so he could wash the come off his mouth. “You may not think this is cheating, but I bet Carla won’t feel that way—”
“So we don’t tell her!” Keith laughed as he came up beside Vern and grabbed a cup from the ledge to start drinking from. Vern flashed to when he and Jessica had been washing dishes at his mom’s house the night before, when she used the opportunity for closeness to bump his hip, nuzzle his shoulder, touch his back.
He found that he craved these things from Keith even more than he’d wanted them from Jess, but he knew the second he even tried for them, Keith would laugh and call him a faggot or sweet pea or something obnoxious.
They’d had each other’s dicks in their mouths, but touching a hip or a shoulder or even a goddamned kiss was somehow worse.
Why the hell was that?
It was starting to piss Vern off.
“It’s not right,” Vern said quietly, standing his ground. “I like Carla.” So that was a bit of a stretch, but still. “Doing this behind her back—it’s not respectful.”
“Well, it’s not like we’re in love,” Keith retorted scornfully.
Maybe not you, but I could be.
The thought made Vern catch his breath and fight tears. He buried it—buried it so far down, it took a few more months and a whole lot more dicks before he could unbury it and see what he might have killed.
“But you’re in love with Carla, and this ain’t right,” Vern said, his chest achy and his throat swollen.
“Are you saying I’m some sort of fairy?” Keith asked, like he was getting angry.
Oh, God forbid. “Look, Keith, Carla gives you head. You don’t need me. You and me, we just keep doing what we do. We just leave this part of it out, okay?”
“Carla gives lousy head,” Keith snarled, and while Vern missed the part where that was his fault, he tried to smooth things over.
“Well, you know, practice. All I’m saying is if somebody catches us, we both won’t be getting no head from our girlfriends, and living in this pile of horseshit will be even fucking harder.”